Posts Tagged ‘star trek’

May the 7th be with you, as I guess people say nowadays. I don’t understand youths. The point is: a trio of ye olde Star Trek games with Kirk, Spock, Sulu, and the gang have been discovered stuck in a transporter buffer for a few decades, and those clever clogs at GOG have rematerialised them to put them back on sale.

Distant Worlds is the best space strategy game ever made, although I’ll permit some leeway for the Master of Orion 2 lovers and have a real soft spot for Ascendancy. Hell, if you want to argue a case for Master of Orion 3, I’d love to read it but I’d need a heavy dose of sedatives on hand in case things became a little too weird. If you haven’t already acquainted yourself with Distant Worlds, my conversation with Edward James Olmos about its charms and intricacies may be just what you’re looking for. If you’re already a convert, news of a Star Trek complete conversion mod should be very exciting indeed. It’s here.

It’s finally appeared. After being much-delayed, apparently to coincide with the film that’s out next month, Star Trek The Videogame (as I think we’re calling it now) is out in the States now, and other parts of the world tomorrow (but for some reason Namco Bandai accidentally forgot to send review codes to ANYONE!). Perhaps I showed my hand regarding my thoughts on Star Trek, when I tweeted yesterday, “Wow. Star Trek is terrible.” But maybe I was bluffing? Here’s wot I think:

Star Trek: The Video Game (right now linking to a 404) is out now! Unless you’re not in America! Because publishers and stores are still living in 1992! So it is that if you’re in the western colonies, you can now buy and play the game and tell us if it’s any good. Meanwhile we, in the Mother Country, are stuck with an ironically named ‘launch video’ and a pre-load option. [Piracy dances across the screen, waggling its hands and tipping its hat.]

Oh, marketing. Attaching a line to your Star Trek Making Of video that says “The Ultimate Co-op Experience” is just asking for trouble, isn’t it? I know I barely get to be in charge of anything in this universe, but in this case I’d definitely have gone for “Look, Spock and Kirk Can Hold Each Other.” And they can, as the video explained: it had to be a co-op game, because Kirk and Spock are opposites who attract. I mean, they don’t fist-bump, but do have each others backs. So to speak.

Star Trek has been in development for over four hundred and fifty thousand years now. The game’s set between the two J.J. Abrams films, yet still calls itself simply “Star Trek”, presumably in a bid to be as impossible to Google for as is humanly imaginable. (They may as well have called it “Britney Spears”.) The release is currently set for April 23rd in the States, then it slowly drifts to Europe by the 26th. And today they’re promising us “the opportunity to explore the USS Enterprise.” And, the slow drip of two new screenshots (clickem to biggem).

Some people talk. You know, with tongues and barbaric throat gurgles. Like peasants. But those people haven’t conquered entire entertainment industries using titanic minds and the world’s supply of lens flare alone. So naturally, Gabe Newell and JJ Abrams’ verbal sparring match drew a bit more attention than the average bout of watercooler small talk. Also, it helps when the conversation involves the formation of a new creative superteam, a verbal fist-bump between two seismically powerful entities. But where exactly do they want to take their respective mediums? Where do they see eye-to-eye, and what are the biggest sticking points? Straight from DICE in Las Vegas, here’s what Newell and Abrams chatted about.

The ostentatiously-named Star Trek (in fact the fifty-third Star Trek computer game) isn’t due until early next year, despite trailers having been appearing since 2011. But trailers still they a-come, and Gamescom has revealed yet another. It’s an action-packed frenzy of Kirk-and-Spock shootyfighting, and far too few bleepy-bloopy computer noises for my liking. There are also ninety-six billion new screenshots, which you can see below.

If you want to wring maximum pleasure from this post, I suggest imagining every word coated in the tendril-like glue that is the movie/TV slow-mo deep voice sound effect. It is, after all, only fitting, given that the grand majority of the new Star Trek trailer drives wellunder the warp speed limit. Running, seemingly suicidal cliff diving, and a bit of covering shooting are the orders of the day here, but with the grace and poise of the creature we humans so desperately envy: the sloth. Admittedly, the whole thing looks a bit Gears-of-Star-Trek-War-ish, but well, not every game can be FTL. As is, I’m anticipating some light, easily digestible shooting action with the occasional heartwarming Kirk-Spock co-op BFF moment. Beam past the break to watch the full trailer.

As if the year 2013 didn’t already sound futuristic enough, the co-operative Star Trek action game that was announced at 2011’s E3 finally has a release date: the first quarter of 2013. And there’s no chance of it falling into a worm hole, because they’re using it to get everyone excited about the next Star Trek movie, out May of next year. Slash machinima makers are going to love having control of Kirk and Spock. If there’s no “make them kiss” option, the makers have truly misunderstood their audience.

I think I’d better remind you about what the game’s all about, because it had completely dropped out of my cortex brain thing. Have a memory-aiding video.Read the rest of this entry »

We have a first proper glimpse of the co-operative Star Trek co-op action game! As stated, it’s firmly in the vein of the JJ Abrams reboot of the series, featuring plenty of lithe young things hurtling through vacuums and leaping out of the way of explosions. I expect I already know the answer to this, but to any physicists reading this- is that TV trope of people clinging onto rails and the like to prevent being sucked out into space even remotely plausible? And if not, why not?Read the rest of this entry »

The pre-E3 announcements are hitting faster than a man cycling down a slightly steep hill, with one of the latest concerning yet another attempt to restore Star Trek as a viable gaming franchise. One-time Epic best-buds and current Darkness 2 handlers Digital Extremes are the studio Paramount’s given the job to, coming up with something based on the JJ Abrams movie reboot of Rodenberry’s finest.

As in the movie/original series, Flight Commander John C. Cork and Professor Speck are the stars of the game. Wait, did I get that right?Read the rest of this entry »

Well, it’s a Mario game. 64, specifically. Nnng. That game is quite good, but every dev seems to say the same thing these days – or is that just me being a misery?

Fortunately, at least if you’re a PC gaming site, Valve boss Newell tells CVG of two other most immortally-beloved games, one of which is Doom (“made me rethink everything I thought about games – control systems, design, rendering”) and the other one of which is simply enormously charming. It’s a punchcard-based Star Trek game for the Burroughs mainframe, played via logic and long-winded printing.Read the rest of this entry »